From Lea Valley to Excel and from Woolwich Common to the Olympic Park velodrome, the feelgood factor spread across London on Thursday as one British medal followed another.

After breaking their gold medal duck on Wednesday, a few mid-afternoon minutes was all it took to transform Team GB's prospects and send them surging up the medal table to fifth on a tear-stained day that climaxed with Sir Chris Hoy's fifth Olympic gold medal.

The morning front pages were dominated by Bradley Wiggins, but Thursday threw up a host of new soon to be household names and gave rise to a breed of instant pub experts on judo, canoe slalom and double trap shooting.

Lord Moynihan, the chairman of the British Olympic Association, said it was a day that underlined the quality of the British team. "We've always said we've got more strength in depth than we had in Beijing and today proved it," he said.

"The one thing we always said we would be focusing on is giving maximum support to the lesser known sports. It's a good day, but we need to keep focused."

Yet the heroes of Beijing didn't let the newcomers have it all their own way. Hoy, Jason Kenny and new addition Philip Hindes set a new world record in the men's team sprint to qualify for the final. They then capped a tumultuous first day in the velodrome, which had earlier seen women's team sprint pair Victoria Pendleton and Jess Varnish disqualified, by breaking it again to win gold.

The gold medal was Hoy's fifth, equalling Sir Steve Redgrave's haul, and afterwards he blew kisses to the crowd as the PA played "The Boys are Back in Town" and "Heroes".

Hoy, who could surpass Redgrave's record on Tuesday in the keirin, said: "There's immense pride to do it here in the UK in front of a home crowd. It's phenomenal. Bradley [Wiggins] said to me after winning yesterday it's a once in a lifetime opportunity, just enjoy it and go for it and I did."

His team-mate Kenny added: "It was devastating to see what happened to the girls, after that we wanted to keep everything really tight. I can't believe how quick we have gone today, unbelievable."

The prime minister, watching with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, looked delighted at having beaten what some had unkindly dubbed "Cameron's curse" given his poor luck in picking winners so far.

A quickfire spell in the middle of the afternoon had set the tone, with BBC anchors unsure where to look as medals tumbled in.

As Etienne Stott and Tim Baillie were winning Britain's first ever canoe slalom gold at the Lea Valley White Water Centre, with compatriots David Florence and Richard Hounslow taking silver, the rangy Peter Wilson was winning gold in the double trap shooting at Woolwich Common.

Minutes later, gutsy judoka Gemma Gibbons took silver in the under-78kg category to win Britain's first medal in the sport in 12 years.

On the rowing lake at Eton Dorney, where Helen Glover and Heather Stanning had broken Team GB's gold medal duck on Wednesday, there was a silver medal for the men's lightweight four, who narrowly lost to South Africa.

Gibbons' surge was among one of the more heartwarming stories. Judo was in disarray for much of the week, with her boyfriend Euan Burton crashing out in tears and the chairman of the governing body trading insults with his athletes.

But Gibbons, from nearby Charlton, battled to the final by dramatically overcoming world champion Audrey Tcheuméo. After her victory, she wept with joy and mouthed "I love you mum", dedicating it to her late mother, who she lost to leukemia in 2004.

"When you are training as hard as you can but not getting results in competitions, you do think, what do I have to do?" she said afterwards. "Deep within, though, I always knew I could do something special, and that is what drives you on."

Her victory had viewers in homes and offices across the country frantically boning up on the difference between an ippon and a yuko, but she narrowly lost in the final to the American Kayla Harrison. She was watched by Cameron, who only arrived in time for the final, accompanied by Russian president and judo black belt Vladimir Putin.

The prime minister then headed for the distinctive curves of the £93m velodrome, where Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were in mourning with the rest of the 6,000 crowd at the disqualification of Pendleton and Varnish from the women's team sprint.

Watching at the white water course at Lea Valley, sports minister Hugh Robertson was having more luck. He saw Stott and Baillie win despite being the slowest boat coming into the final.

Baillie, from Aberdeen, said: "I don't think surreal really covers it. It's crazy. I think I will bask in the happy, strange glow for a few days. Coming in we weren't favourites or anything. The sport is so topsy turvy, we could have gone out in qualifying. You just never know."

At Woolwich Common, where a strange Tellytubby style village has sprung up to house the shooting contest, Wilson explained how he was coached by a member of the Dubai royal family. Sheikh Ahmed al-Maktoum won the event at the Athens Games in 2004 and as a result of his coaching Wilson shoots in a distinctive sideways Arabian style rather than using the more conventional European stance.

Needing to hit just one of his final two pairs, Wilson successfully hit both and there were more tears as he sunk to his knees and embraced his father. After landing Britain's first shooting medal in 12 years, the 25-year-old farmer's son from Dorset said: "I'm going to get very, very drunk and do something stupid."

There was also good news from Weymouth, where Ben Ainslie revived hopes of winning a historic fourth consecutive sailing gold amid a bitter war of words with Danish rival Jonas Hogh-Christensen, and Wimbledon, where Andy Murray reached the tennis semi-finals.

With Jessica Ennis beginning her campaign as the athletics get under way in the main stadium, and Rebecca Adlington swimming in her strongest event, Team GB hopes the momentum will continue. British chef de mission Andy Hunt said the crop of medals had given the whole 541-strong team a "shot of adrenaline".

Moynihan said it was "a great day for Team GB". He added: "It's another positive move forward on what will be a long journey, with some outstanding and memorable results that will prove critical in the final analysis of the performance of our team."